THE Electric Cinema’s multi-talented owner Tom Lawes is planning to direct his own feature film.

But first, having saved Britain’s oldest working cinema in 2004, he will release a documentary next week called The Last Projectionist.

Starring several veteran projectionists who have spend decades screening movies in the city, it records the changing fashions, fads and technologies of the industry.

Tom has not only written, directed and edited the film, but he also scored it and sound mixed it, too.

The Last Projectionist will play at the Electric Cinema for a week from June 22 and include a special Q&A screening on June 23 when many of the film’s participants will gather to watch it with an audience for themselves.

Father of two Tom finished the film a year ago, but the former Handsworth Grammar School pupil is already thinking ahead.

Having established the Electric as a viable, stand-alone business and a team of 20 staff, he is now developing his own film-making arm called Electric Flix.

He has recently spent four months shooting a series of ten short films called Southside Stories.

They will be screened alongside new releases during the during the winter as value-added bonuses.

Tom now has two newly-acquired digital Red cameras – which have made films from Winter’s Bone to Prometheus look so distinctive.

He’s three drafts into a project called Club Cinematica, about how cinema staff end up trapped in their own theatre.

It’s based on real events last summer, when Tom was in New York and his staff called to say they were having to shut down the Electric.

Everything of value was barricaded away while the staff ended up on the roof.

“It will be like a Breakfast Club comedy, but with a general sense of fear,” says Tom.

“The police couldn’t advise us because of public liability issues.

“They would only say: ‘This is the situation, you do what you think is right’.

“We ended up being closed for three days and, had that happened earlier on, it could have bankrupted us but because the business is now so sound we were just able to ride it.”

Depending on funds, Tom will either shoot the movie locally on a £100,000 budget – possibly using a more landmark older cinema that has been closed or even at his own – or in London as a co-production with a star.

The Last Projectionist will be reviewed next week.

* Film Birmingham’s Sindy Campbell and film and television enthusiast Mark Wilson will lead a 90-minute Birmingham TV & Film Location Walking Tour from 11am and 2pm tomorrow.

it will cover 50 years’ of film-making in the city.

Beginning at One Colmore Row, the route will take around 90 minutes. Tickets: £4.